Koogmo #10
Perzine, Anthony Abelaye, P.O. Box 861294, Plano, TX, 75086, USA, koogmo.com, [email protected], $1 USD
Have you been considering a trip to Mexico City? Or perhaps Costa Rica? And putting the whole thing on credit, debt be damned? The 10th installation of Anthony Abelaye’s Koogmo can give you some pointers.
The nearly all-text issue is printed in black and white on full 8 ½ x 11 pages stapled in the upper corner. After handling booklet zines all afternoon, I picked this one up and got a frickin’ paper cut. You drew blood, Anthony! Sheesh.
Koogmo is usually a compilation zine of Abelaye’s writings and materials submitted by others, but Issue 10 is predominantly comprised of his Central American travelogue, and I think it’s the better for it. There is one external contribution, but it strikes me as a throw-away piece: an unhinged amalgamation of secret society conspiracy theories, barely legible in six typewritten paragraphs. However, the travelogue is a good piece of writing. The trip, taken on burned vacation days between jobs, seems to have been planned on the fly and Anthony describes it all like only a half-interested tourist. His stated aim is to walk around, or sit around — that’s it. And yet it’s all so interesting: arguing without a common language with waitresses, sweating in tiny hotel rooms, basking in Central American music video channels. Nothing dramatic happens, except almost being kept off a flight due to overbooking. And for some reason, as he describes it all, at no time do I envision Anthony smiling. I picture him straight-faced, unperturbed, deadpan.
I smiled, though, chuckled even, when Abelaye mentions taking the whole trip on credit with no regard for the bill: “Total cost of the entire trip: I have no idea … sometimes you gotta live.” My God, man.